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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463633">Phantom Pains</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothMoth/pseuds/GothMoth'>GothMoth</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>May's Phantastical Callings [38]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Danny Phantom</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, Hidden meanings, Isolation, Names</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-05-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 01:09:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>706</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24463633</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/GothMoth/pseuds/GothMoth</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Names have worth and meaning, not always happy but not totally sad.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>May's Phantastical Callings [38]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1405315</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>169</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Phantom Pains</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>DannyMay 2020 Day 22: Isolation</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p></p><div>
  <p>The general public always seemed to think his name was simply a jokester making a joke at his own expense. Those in the know thought it was just a pun, something to rhyme with his last name. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>But that wasn’t it. His name <em>meant</em> something. Every ghosts did. <em>Always</em>. It had nothing to do with what he was or some rhyming scheme or even laziness.</p>
</div><div>
  <p>No. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He had always been the forgotten one. The unnoticed one. Ignored in place of bigger personalities and smarter minds. Others affection or attention for him so fleeting that they might as well not even be there at all. Leaving him aching and hurting for things that aren’t there. Everyone only leaving handprints on him, but never solid enough for him to hold onto. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He was just the remains of potential. Someone carved his sister as perfect as they could and he was just the forgotten scraps. Still had his uses, could still look nice. But was generally only noticed when he was making a mess or in the way. Sometimes when people had an explicit use for him, whatever happening to him once they were done being ignored. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>People were Phantoms to him, impermanent and detached. Cold but still there. Foggy and untouchable but not invisible. They could still affect him. Still hurt him. By they never really knew him and he didn’t really know any of them. Even his friends would brush him off like he no longer existed at the drop of a hat. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>And his wounds, always best kept hidden, even when he would ache noticeably or complain everyone just shrugged it off or claimed it wasn’t really there. Those that caused them never bothering to even remember themselves. Him and his hurt was just background noise, easily ignored unless he turned up the volume and screamed. They’d ignore him again as soon as he shut up though. Go on like it never happened. He did it too, always had. He wouldn’t have been able to live if he dwelled on every scrape and broken bone. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Though he never really had a life in the first place, so how could he even lose it? Something that he supposedly had but was never close enough to know. Life had always been a Phantom to him. He had dreams for his future life, but knew they were never possible. His social life had always been dead on arrival even if he was still part of social life. No one noticed him unless pain was involved. His family life, well, better not to think about it anymore. His romantic life was just people flaunting him for attention like someone with Munchausen syndrome looking for a fix. His academic life, simply average and forgettable. He was never alive, just a shadow of it. A phantom of life. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>Even as a ghost everything was attached to him by only wispy threads. Society, the town, humans, ghosts, family, friends, foes. Paying attention to his existence was optional to all of them except when he forced himself to be known. And the reverse was true as well. Him noticing all of them only in flashes. Like he existed in a universe of fog, there were shapes in it but they were never really defined. Nothing for him to grasp and unable to be grasped. Nothing for him but to keep floating forward, none of the mist truly being pulled with him and never really taking anything from him. They just brushed up against each other and were gone. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>He was everyone’s phantom pain and they were his. A lost half-dead child thought of about as much as the average person does their toes, until they start to hurt. </p>
</div><div>
  <p> </p>
</div><div>
  <p>So that’s what his name really meant, why it was his name. Because he’s just a ghost hanging off the backs of everyone’s and everything's consciousness. A Phantom of a human, of the town, of a student, of a friend and son. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>It was just dumb luck it also made for a nice pun. Maybe the universes way to take a piss on his existence while also giving him something to laugh about. He liked filling the largely empty mist around him with his laughter. </p>
</div><div>
  <p>
    <strong>End. </strong>
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